Minute Hand, Hour Hand
by Virtue
Summary: His fingers lined the edges of the fabric ever so lightly, a touch she wasn't aware that he was capable of, but damn eager to draw more of it out of him.


The first thing she heard when the sunlight shone through her eyelids was the distant ticking of the hands of an old grandfather clock, tucked away in the corner of his bedroom in subtle reminiscence of her father's upbringing; a modest clock repair shopowner's grandson was how the now esteemed Dr. Briefs got his start, learning about the gears that gave time a value, and his daughter had acquired that same thirst for understanding.

Or, at least she did sometimes.

Bringing a hand to her brow, she couldn't help but internally stress about the images that crowded her brain.

The mattress beside her was empty.

She'd leaned against the doorway of his bathroom wearing only a robe, fully aware of the unabashed manner in which the opening outlined her breasts and her legs were exposed from the short length. Words were spoken. His fingers lined the edges of the fabric ever so lightly, a touch she wasn't aware that he was capable of, but damn eager to draw more of it out of him. His lips against hers in a crushing wine-ridden blur that ended with her disrobed and naked, subjected to his every pull and push of her limbs, pressuring her with a pleasure she couldn't put into words. Her heart quickened and vessels dilated with such intensity that the memory of it all made her unsure of whether it was the actual rhythm of her heart or the harsh pulse of their rutting in the darkness of his bedroom.

That was what happened before the clock started ticking so loud.

"What will we tell everyone?" She half whispered, still coming down from the bliss of it all.

Her answer was an unintelligible grunt, where she was met by the shorelines of muscle on his back and hills of his spine facing her in the moonlight.

That was fine, Bulma assured herself, slipping away into sleep quickly enough that when he rose from the mattress, he relieved her of the pressure of his weight.

The next morning, she awoke again to the ticking of the clock sore and disheveled, cursing herself for sleeping so late in a room that wasn't hers own at an hour where her staff was roaming the halls. She carefully collected all evidence of her being there, hopeful that would ward off any gossip to the press.

_She'd slept with Vegeta._

He continued his intense training regimen, acknowledging her only as needed to suit his needs in the gravity chamber. It was an annoyance she was willing to bother herself with, despite the fact that she had a job that required her attention as well.

He was _incredibly _selfish.

Bulma strolled into the lab every morning to greet her father with his favorite cappuccino, speaking only of topics that related to the extent of their work.

She'd gotten unexpectedly caught up in the flow of Vegeta's body in suspension one day, sipping her caffeinated beverage absentmindedly, rousing only to the feeling of her father's critical eyes on her.

"We need to talk." She told him one day, punctuating the firm tone of imperative lecture in her voice.

Vegeta turned to her, eyes dark and cold. "I don't have time to talk to _you, _or anyone."

That night she'd found him again in the gravity room, entering only in light of a notification in the system for a routine calibration. She felt his eyes on her from where he crouched in the dim, flickering light behind her, and ignored him, feeling satisfaction that she was giving him the same treatment he gave her, for once.

Vegeta was drenched in sweat, making her wrists slide under his grip when he pinned them over her head, lifting her upon the control the panel, making her pale skin glow in front the the lit screen despite the pitch blackness of the chamber, where the ceiling lights flitted on and off in protest of her lack of attention to them. It was an atmosphere of chaos that suited them both, she thought, because when the lights flashed against his face his irises look like stone, and when the flickered off they looked they way she remembered them.

She murmured his name against his lips this time, as if in prayer that he would actually come to acknowledge her for more than he had.

It was despicable, because she was Bulma Briefs. She was beautiful, and intelligent, and she'd _just _done a photoshoot in announcement for her place as the wealthiest woman in the world. And in light of her newest breakup with Yamcha- arguably the most _eligible _bachelorette on earth. And here she was, reduced to being the plaything of an alien who claimed himself a Prince, and the man who demanded the murder of her best friends.

It was conflicting, to say the least.

* * *

"_Vegeta!"_ she'd screeched his name like it was the title page to the book of the dead, willing him back to consciousness been he'd pushed himself too hard one particular day.

"We need to call call the medical department." Her fathered breathed, eyes wide in awe as she single handed pulled the man by the arm pits from the depths of the chamber.

"Yeah, if they'd _come right now and slap some sense into him that'd be great!_" She snapped, however harsh and unintentional, and her father responded with soft eyes and a nod, dialing the in-house number for the medics to arrive.

She'd fallen asleep at his bedside that night, after an hour or so of propping her chin by a hand and staring out the clear glass into the night. The Spring's rainy season was beginning.

"What're you doing in my room, _woman_?" Vegeta croaked, and her consciousness stirred to the sound of the hands on the clock again, willing her awake to face him again. She didn't necessarily want to face him.

"Woman damn near saved your life." She hissed back at him and he blinked slowly, his dark eyes analyzing her poor posture in the subtle light of daybreak. He lifted a hand to his bandages in the curiosity of realization.

"_Ah!"_ She exclaimed, hopping out of her chair to slap his hand away.

Heavy lidded, he eyed her with bewilderment. He'd clearly never been properly slapped before.

"You were in pretty bad shape," Bulma scolded him, "And if that shoulder opens up again I'm not sure we'll be able to transfuse because of your... _condition._"

"Transfuse?" His brow furrowed.

"You know, like give you donor blood because you've lost so much today."

He clearly didn't understand the concept, so he eyed her like _she _was the space alien.

They stayed like that for several hours more, and when he woke again, sore and cranky. Bulma dismissed herself to give someone else the displeasure of bringing food to him. If she learned anything from Goku it was that food could always lift a Saiyan's spirit, but then again, this rude stranger was so different from Goku it was hard to fathom that they were of the same race.

* * *

"He works so hard," Her mother drawled, lifting the heavy cookings only a cooling rack and frowning as Bulma scooped the crumbs from one in her hand and swallowed it. "You think he'd want some cookies?"

Bulma chewed, allowing the sweetness to soak her mouth and tongue, willing herself to wash away the taste of a man who offered her nothing but indifference, and the possible destruction of her home planet.

"Yeah mom, he probably would." Bulma noted aloud, partly out of animosity, because the image of her mother bringing him cookies brought her satisfaction at the sense that he'd be repulsed at his enjoyment of them while her mother watched him intently and made him self conscious only in the way that _she_ could.

"Shouldn't you be fixing my chamber?" He asked her harshly, a cup of unsweetened tea pressed to her chin.

"I will be, yes," She responded irritably, "But believe it or not I have _other _things that require my attention here, and _you _are not the only one who takes up time and space in this place."

She didn't even bother making eye contact, bringing the tea to her lips in a downward glance to her phone, sliding her thumb across the screen and tapping it to relay numerous messages, none of which were for him.

She knew it made him angry when she was dismissive.

He took her that night in her own bedroom, gripping an arm behind her back in a rather meager display of dominance, though it was _her_ who clearly set the pace and position.

* * *

"No." Bulma persisted through gritted teeth, "You can't make the settings that high _and _expect the droids to keep up _it's just not possible."_

Vegeta spat out a vulgar response to which she answered by hanging up the intercom, and the control room rattled as he'd undoubtedly punched something in the room next door.

Bulma couldn't help herself. She switched the intercom back on. "Yeah that's right! Keep breaking shit so that you can complain about how _slow _I am while I clean it up!" She snarled, hanging up again to mute his reply.

"My, you seem to like pushing his buttons lately." Her father help his cappuccino mug close to his lips, tapping it rhythmically with a finger.

Bulma slammed her first on the panel when she watched him defiantly up the settings through the window against her warning. "He's pushing mine!" She snapped, crossing the room in a fury to pull the emergency lever that would override the programming.

"I'm not sure I would do that, it'll be quite the repairs either way."

She pulled anyway. And the string of curses that greeted her in the hallway and followed her to her office where she slammed the door behind her.

He could've barged in if he wanted to. He could've beat her into submission like the obvious brute that he was, hell, he could've annihilated her home and the whole city if he wanted to, it would've made her feel the turmoil that his wrath could produce.

He didn't. She was almost shocked and somewhat disappointed when she opened the door sometime later to find him gone.

* * *

She'd find excuses to walk the hall where he slept, and on one particular night she had the perfect excuse to talk to him, because the gravity chamber had been repaired and she innocently wanted to tell him so.

But when she knocked, there was no response. She slid her master keycard into the slot by the door to grant herself access.

The room was empty and silent, save for the ticking of the clock and the pelting drops of rain on the window.

She stood there for a moment, half tempted to rummage through his things, not that he had very much.

But he carried a smell that she could pinpoint anywhere, it wasn't unpleasant, but it was there. She shamefully wondered if she could smell it on his sheets.

Her toes curled at the thought, but she didn't dare.

The rains came steadily, and she found him that night outside her home, under the shelter of the gazebo. He stood there looking regal, and stiff, and she stood before him in her robe again, this time not because she intended to seduce him but because she'd spent so much time searching for him throughout her home that she'd become unraveled with worry.

"I don't want to _be _with anyone but you." Bulma declared stubbornly, feeling foolish and pathetic as soon as the words left her mouth. The rained left a mist that wrapped around her thighs in the night's breeze, leaving her wet and cold with her eyelashes stuck together in saturation and her long hair forming clumps against her chest.

She wrapped her arms across her front tightly, stepping into the artificial light of the gazebo.

"I know that we're coming from different places in life, and I could easily bicker and fight with you about things that don't matter"

Her words produced a visible reaction in his body. His shoulders rose and fell and he turned to face her so that she could see how he scoffed at her pathetic declaration.

"Because _honestly _Vegeta? Does it _really _matter if you don't get your way? In this house you're a _guest. I'm helping you because I want to."_

She didn't care what he thought of it.

"-And I don't want to be with anyone else." She repeated the notion again.

She half expected him to take her right then and there is his usual fashion, when the grey lights of dawn were only a silent promise against the would-be kiss of his against her neck while she panted.

But he made no such advancement as she turned away from him and crossed the yard, clutching her robe at the neck and her thighs to keep it from coming loose in the rainy wind.

A soft knock sounded at her door sometime later after she'd taken a hot shower to drain the coldness of their encounter from her mind, she was towel drying her hair at the vanity when she heard it.

It was almost too gentle of a knock for such a hard-headed man, like his touch when she'd felt it for the first time, running along the low neckline of her robe in his room.

"Come in." She said, turning to the doorway as the door open and shut, and his footsteps were muffled by the carpet.

Her body was like a deity, or so one would think by the way Vegeta curled around her, worshipping her, and relieving her of the shame of a one-sided declaration of intense emotions.

She wasn't sure about love, but she _didn't_ want to be with anyone else. Her bedroom lacked the clock, but when they quieted she could hear it in her head marking time as it spread away from her, or counting down to the end, she wasn't sure which was more applicable, given her predicament.

* * *

A/N: Taking a break from the usual Goku/Chi Chi content for a while but still having fun with this fandom while I put off updating some things. Thanks for reading!


End file.
